


Body Image

by Ishmael



Series: Bodies [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Angst, Body Dysphoria, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Feelings, First Time, Genderqueer Character, Hand Jobs, Hip Kink, Masturbation, Mirrors, Other, POV Sherlock Holmes, Thinky Sex, Transgender, Voice Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-12
Updated: 2012-07-12
Packaged: 2017-11-09 20:45:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/458197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishmael/pseuds/Ishmael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He meets your eyes in the mirror, caught. </p><p>The you he knows, touching him. The you he doesn’t, hidden but undeniable against his back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Body Image

**Author's Note:**

> A follow-up to Body of Evidence. Thank you to everyone who read and commented; it is because of you I ended up revisiting this AU.
> 
> Thanks to my usual suspects [](http://tartancravat.livejournal.com/profile)[**tartancravat**](http://tartancravat.livejournal.com/) , [](http://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink)[**coloredink**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/coloredink) , and [](http://archiveofourown.org/users/heqakheperre)[**heqakheperre**](http://archiveofourown.org/users/heqakheperre) for looking it over and [](http://rubyofkukundu.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://rubyofkukundu.livejournal.com/)**rubyofkukundu** for Britpicking.
> 
> This deals directly with the issues of a transgendered person navigating sex with a new partner, where both parties make missteps. Feel free to ask about any potential triggers.

John is a good man. He will try, but he will fail. He will never _understand._ These are facts, inevitable truths. But you will make the effort. 

You pull back, untangling your legs from his and removing your jacket. “Now.”

His lips are bruised red, wet. You can smell his arousal despite the barriers of clothing. He furrows his brow. “You're--”

Tedious. You kiss him to shut him up. “I wouldn't be saying this if I weren't sure.”

“Right. Shall we, uh--” He stumbles, words awkward in his mouth. This is not the John who confidently kept up a string of girlfriends. You do not need coddling.

“Strip. I'll do the same. Much faster this way.” You do not want to wait because John's inexperience gets you stuck in your binder.

Both of you stand and begin, backs to each other like an awkward changing room. _Wrong_. You stride into his line of sight as you unbutton your shirt, revealing the smooth cloth of your binder, the dip of your clavicle. It distracts him from his own buttons instead of making him go faster. “Hurry up.”

He laughs, part nerves part exasperation as he rids himself of shirt and vest and starts on his belt. “Pushy git.”

You are tempted to leave your binder on but slide it over your head in a swift, resolute motion. No more hiding.

“Shouldn't we--” he hesitates as he pulls down his pants, cock bobbing and half-hard, trying not to stare at the sight of your chest. 

You are not sure what the quiver in your belly means, so you dismiss it. “It's fine.” You navigated well enough before without needing to _talk_. Your body is yours to command. You shake your ankle to dislodge your trousers and shorts, emerging at last from your carefully constructed masculine shell.

Silence and mutual stares. John’s body has no surprises for you outside of the details of his scar, but you greedily soak in everything. John is distracted by the obvious, the additions and subtractions between presentation and the form before him.

His gaze is heavy against your skin and you remind yourself that this is what you want. You grab his hands and pull him back onto the sofa with you. Too much thinking, not enough _doing._

“Can I--” he places an uncertain hand on your belly, neutral ground, with obvious designs of moving upward.

“Yes.” Your chest has never been particularly sensitive, but touching isn't unpleasant.

John runs his thumbs over your nipples, fingers tracing the curve, calluses dragging against soft flesh.

There is a crawling in your abdomen that wasn't there with Seb, a foreign animal under your skin rearing its head. You struggle for the right words, hating that something has changed. “Touching them does little for me.” 

John chuckles, cupping your chest gently with his hands. “Does a lot for me. I like them.”

 _Stop, he didn’t_ —You flinch, your entire torso jerking. Your body betrays you in new ways, warping his attempt at acceptance into revulsion. Your heart hammers with _I told you so, you knew this would happen._

The hands freeze, then pull away. “Shit,” John presses his palms to his face, smearing them over his skin like they can wipe away thirty-seven years of gender role reinforcement and sexual history. Presented with the same anatomy as his previous girlfriends, John reverts to standard behaviour. “I didn’t—I meant—” He does not look at you. “I’m sorry, Sherlock.”

You wish you had chosen to cut them off, hatred blazing through your veins at this sack of meat that impedes you with its mere form. If you had other parts, if you had chosen to alter yourself, it wouldn't be so hard for him to change, to know that you are different. If, if, if—the litany of ways your body is wrong-right and uncomfortable, like an ill-fitted suit. You want to slough it off, become thought and brilliance without flesh to hold you back.

The feeling is so consuming you do not notice John is leaving until the cold air makes your skin prickle. Skin and muscle and bone, the cage that houses your mind reminding you what is important.

Adrenaline spikes. If he leaves his guilt will consume him, trepidation colouring his every touch (if he ever is willing to try again.) A hand hovering over the skin of your back but never touching, never pressing his warmth into yours. _Unacceptable._

This was easier when you didn’t care, when the implications of sex meant nothing but a brief endorphin high and loose limbs. Easier, but not better. You can make this work. Somehow, you will make it work.

“John.” He keeps retreating, the sight of his bare feet walking away from you twisting your gut. You cannot let this happen. “Stop,” you demand, your feet slapping the hardwood of the hall as you move to seize his wrist. He stills, but does not turn around. His pulse thrums against your fingers.

You spin him around and kiss him, biting up his neck and shoulder in an angry red trail until you press your lips to his with bruising force, brushing with brief, teasing swipes of tongue until he opens his mouth. You crowd him, push him toward your room. He will read it as aggression, masculinity ( _wrong_ ). You keep touching him, hands-fingers-mouth-lips interrupting his protests until you’re inside your room and his kisses stop tasting like apologies.

The mirror on your wardrobe door. _Yes_. You position him in front of it, feel the tension coil in his spine—he doesn’t like the idea (the mirror isn’t the point) too caught up inside himself to _see._

“Keep your eyes on me,” you command, snaking your hands around him, pressing him against your unexpected angles. His body blocks out almost all of yours, only your head and shoulders visible. Before him is the man Sherlock Holmes, the _person_ that is you he recognizes.

You reach for his flagging erection, curling yourself around him as your hand slides thigh-hip-cock. He meets your eyes in the mirror, caught. 

The you he knows, touching him. 

The you he doesn’t, hidden but undeniable against his back.

This will work. It is not how you wanted it to be, but you are forced to reconcile with what will properly translate. It has been a long time. It suddenly irritates you that you only have the preferences of a man who makes your stomach seethe to draw from. You will delete it, delete everything and overwrite it with John.

You give a few light touches, feeling the muscles spasm as he debates pulling away. Your press your lips to his ear, pushing your voice as deep as it will go. “Keep watching, John.”

You can feel the motion of him swallowing. He tries to turn to look at you.“Sherlock, I--”

Your other hand snakes out, grabbing his chin and forcing it back. “Don't look away.”

Once again your eyes meet, dark blue and pale grey. You press harder against him, wishing you had a cock to rub and tease against his arse. ( _Later, soon, never._ )

You keep stroking him slowly, releasing his chin and letting your free hand trail down his chest, feeling the solidity of bone and the strength of muscle, the tickle of increasingly coarse hair. His eyes follow your hand down, face disbelieving, as if the mirror presents a fantasy he had written off as impossible.

Once, you had thought it impossible as well.

You are touching him, watching his erection return as you feel it against your palm, soft foreskin exposing his wet head.

You _want_. You want to feel the texture of every inch of skin, map the muscles beneath. You want to feel the blood-warmth of his body around your fingers, you want to feel him shake as he comes, you want to feel him push inside you as far as he can go, you want to taste and touch and categorize each part of him. You want a cock to press inside him, you want him to hold you down so hard he leaves bruises, you want to hit him and feel the sting on your skin and his, you want to hold his legs apart until they ache, you want to break and be broken, you want to have everything.

(You cannot. There is too much between you, behind you.)

Right now, you have his undivided attention. The images made you increase your pace, left you unfocused. You concentrate on the reflection before you, the red of his glans next to the white of your fingers.

John makes a noise in the back of his throat, his ear hot with your breath.

Oh. You'd said your list out loud.

He liked it. 

You will have to explore it later, find out what will work. Much of it will wait. Some is best as fantasy.

His hands reach back, hovering above your skin, the angle awkward as he tries not to interrupt you. You alter your arms to avoid adding pressure to the hunch of his shoulders, granting permission. His hands rest on your narrow hips, thumbs pressing against your iliac crest. A noise slips out between your lips unbidden, which makes him do it again, harder.

Your use of obscenity is calculated, rare. “ _Fuck_ ,” you whisper into his ear, letting the harsh click of the _k_ snap against him. His hands tighten their grip reflexively. _Yes_ , good. Too much thinking happens when touching only goes one way, too much reverberating inside your skull.

Your wrist is tired, unused to these prolonged motions. It annoys you, the ache making its way up your arm, the limits of your body. You push faster, tighten your grip. The motion is repetitive and boring but his reaction isn't. He's close, you can see it in the way he wants to thrash his head to the side or close his eyes but can't, can't stop watching you.

Faster, faster. Your free hand moves from where it had splayed over his stomach to trail over the crease where leg meets torso, brushes his balls as you encourage his legs apart.

“Ha, _ha_ ,” he exhales in a strange sexual parody of a laugh as he comes. He is unable to stop his eyes from closing, his head falling back against your shoulder. His fingers push into your skin, sure to leave bruises; his legs tremble with the effort of staying upright. His entire body twitches and shakes, his breath laboured and vocalized the same way as waking from a nightmare. (Interesting.)

You stay pressed against him, wet and aching and knowing you cannot let him reciprocate. 

“Let me—can I—“ 

“No.”

The face in the mirror becomes a mask, closed and strange. You pull back, step around him, press against him again, front to front, unnerved by the feel of your landscapes of skin moving together but knowing you both need this. He wraps his arms around you, damp palms on your shoulder blades like the afterimages of small wings.

“Not yet.” You know your body less now, its strange map of yes and no. You will not risk another incident until you understand more, until you trust him enough to see you and not your body.

But perhaps—you reach your clean fingers into your slickness, knuckles brushing against John's abdomen as they slide. His breath hitches but he doesn't move, like he might shatter the moment should he interfere. You tilt your neck in invitation. John takes the hint, his tongue running along your jugular notch, teeth grazing your trapezius. It makes little sense, that the presence of another makes the same dull motions spark up your spine like this. You tease your entrance as John bites down, your hips jerking forward in surprise. You gasp as you tease and rub and shudder with orgasm, curling into John with loose limbs. His lips brush your shoulder, neck, mouth until it's a lazy exchange of tongues and saliva.

Messy, disgusting, ( _perfect_ ,) your wet fingers leaving trails on his skin as you run them up his ribs, prison bars of bone. You want to touch and touch and touch, until you could recognize any part of him blind. The swelling in your chest makes it hard to breathe.

“I'm knackered. Bed?” John can't hide the uncertainty in his eyes, but he kisses you and runs dexterous fingers through your wrecked hair.

Sentiment, to indulge in waking up relaxed and warm with another body. A weakness you are willing to accept (for now.) “Yes.” 

He passes you tissues and you clean yourself off as he does the same, almost domestic. Perhaps you could get used to this.

You will wake up entangled in sheets and limbs, his stubble scratching against your shoulder and your nose in his hair, like a jigsaw puzzle—in pieces but still whole.


End file.
